'Halo' Ending Explained: Will Pablo Schreiber Return as Master Chief?

Halo came to its dramatic conclusion on Thursday, May 19 with an intense ninth episode that revealed Master Chief's fate after the Spartans went up against Covenant forces.

The Paramount+ game adaptation stars Pablo Schreiber as the aforementioned Spartan, also known as John-117, and has followed him as he finds out the truth about his past, and his connection to the Halo.

The show's Season 1 finale, titled "Transcendence," proved to be an action-packed episode. Here is all you need to know about how the story concluded.

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Halo's Season 1 finale.

'Halo' Season 1 Ending Explained

Halo episode 9 opens moments after its penultimate episode ended, with Master Chief waking up after being knocked out when Makee (Charlie Murphy) escaped from UNSC headquarters with the Artifacts.

The Spartan persuades his superiors to let him and his fellow soldiers go after the 'Blessed One' themselves and find where the Covenant are based, thus saving the lives of other humans that might have died in the fight between the two forces.

After a journey through space that almost killed them, Master Chief and the Silver Team arrive at Covenant territory where they immediately go to battle in a fight scene reminiscent of the original first-person shooter games.

In that time the Covenant put the Artifacts together to discover the location of the Sacred Ring and Makee, hoping to save Master Chief, uses them to send them both to their shared vision of the Halo ringworld where she asks him to stay.

However, in the real world Makee is suddenly killed leaving Master Chief with a difficult choice: save his team from annihilation or get the Artifacts from the Covenant.

In a bid to make both happen, Master Chief gives Cortana (Jen Taylor) control over his body, seemingly dying before she does so and successfully takes the Keystones back to the Spartan spaceship.

As they escape Cortana remains silent as she helps one fallen Spartan from the brink of death, but Kai-125 (Kate Kennedy) seems to suspect that something is amiss with their leader.

In the closing moments of the episode Kai-125 sits with Master Chief and asks him if he is the real John, but he doesn't reply thus suggesting that the real Spartan could really be dead.

Will Pablo Schreiber Return as Master Chief?

When Halo debuted on Paramount+ in March it was already renewed for a second season, and it has been confirmed that Schreiber will reprise his role as Master Chief in future episodes.

While John-117 appears to not be alive the character is still present thanks to Cortana, so a second season will likely explore how the AI is able to bring the Spartan back to life.

In an interview with TechRadar in March, executive producer Kiki Wolfkill said that the team were already in the early stages of development for the second season.

Of their plans, she said: "You know, not unlike a game you finish, you immediately have lots of things we want to do.

"People are exhausted but also excited to take forward what we learned [on season 1] or the ideas we didn't get to implement. So we're aiming towards getting back into production before too long, and we're super thankful for the renewal."

Fans will be happy to know that Schreiber has already spoken publicly about his appearance in the second season. He told Collider about Season 2 on March 20, saying: "We'll be filming again this summer.

"We're still figuring out exactly what the start date is, but we will be in production by summertime because we have a hard date that we need to be up and running in order to get some location that is weather affected."

Halo Season 1 is available to watch in full on Paramount+ now.